by Donna Ball
Manahan nodded. “They should be briefed on what’s going on, but otherwise proceed with their duties. The fewer people out there …” Buck knew he was about to say “getting in our way” but skipped that part and finished simply, “the better. Your K-9 unit should sweep the parade route Monday morning, but I imagine you’d already planned that.”
Buck had not. But he hadn’t known then what he knew now.
“As far as the public is concerned, the extra law enforcement presence is due to Jeb Wilson’s appearance at the parade,” Manahan went on. “From your end, it should be operations normal.”
Buck said, “Operations normal. My pleasure. Meantime, I have a fellow you might want to talk to. His name is Reggie Conner, and I think I just figured out where he’s been going when he told his daddy he was at AA meetings.”
Chapter Sixteen
Magic might have a lot of less-than-stellar qualities: she was a sneak thief, an escape artist unparalleled by anyone except her sister, and an unabashed chow hound. But she was an excellent obedience dog, she always came when she was called, and she never ran away without permission. She therefore won the honor of being my demo for obedience class that afternoon while Cisco rested in the cabin with Mischief. “Rested” was, of course, a generous word. If the truth were told, I wasn’t feeling all that benevolent toward Cisco that afternoon and thought it was best if we took a break from each other.
The afternoon downpour came right on time, just as I began my obedience class. Eight squealing kids and barking dogs scurried for the rather frail shelter of our pop-up canopy. While rain drummed on our plasticized roof and the interior steamed with the smell of wet dogs and wet children, I improvised a quick lecture on the three qualities of a good leader, firmness, fairness and consistency, and I felt like a hypocrite. After all, if I practiced what I preached I wouldn’t be the proud owner of a dog who took off like a wild hare after anything that struck his fancy, destroyed personal property and made me look like a fool.
After five minutes in which my human audience pretended to listen politely while struggling to keep their dogs from whining, barking, sniffing other dogs and chewing their leashes, I asked if there were any questions. A little girl whose paw-print lanyard ID tag read Matilda raised her hand. I acknowledged her gratefully. At least someone had been paying attention.
“Where did you get those earrings?” she asked. “They’re really cute.”
I had a feeling I was losing my audience, so I called Magic up and showed off her tricks—balancing a dog biscuit on her nose, jumping through my arms, playing dead—until the rain stopped a few minutes later. While the sun turned the swampy soccer field into a steam bath, I showed the children how each one of Magic’s tricks had been based on an obedience behavior, and soon they were excited about teaching their dogs “sit,” “come” and “down.” I ended the class on a patriotic note, with all the dogs heeling happily around the ring while nibbling treats from their handlers’ hands to the tune of “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy” playing from my portable boom box. All in all, not a bad save.
As soon as the kids scattered with their dogs for free time, I went to the camp store. I bought every package of beef jerky on display—there weren’t that many, but some of the instructors liked to use them as training treats—along with packages of the dried fruit and trail mix that the parents had no doubt insisted we stock as snacks, and several bags of candy. From the kitchen I begged a package of hot dogs and some fresh apples. I offered to pay for them, but the cook just laughed and waved me off, replying that I wasn’t the first person who had been in that day looking for hot dogs to use as training treats, and that Margie stocked extra for that purpose. The apples, she admitted, were a first, but they were free to all campers, and since they weren’t exactly a fast-moving item, I was welcome to all I could use. I took her at her word and dumped a whole bowl into my sack.
I settled Mischief and Magic in the cabin with stuffed bones and promised them a long run after dinner. I filled Cisco’s saddlebags with my purchases, strapped on his backpack and his leash and left for our hike. After all, I figured Cisco deserved a chance to redeem himself.
It took us a little longer than it had the first time, since I wasn’t chasing a pair of golden retrievers going full-tilt through the brush. But the woods were cool and fragrant, the leaves still dripping rainwater and splashing my skin when I pushed aside branches, and I enjoyed the hike. As we approached the campsite, though, I put Cisco in a sit and commanded softly, “Speak.”
He licked his lips, because he always likes to warm up for a performance, and barked once sharply. I called out, “Hello! We’re friendly!”
I just wanted to introduce ourselves. The man had a gun, after all.
To be honest, there was a part of me that hoped he had moved on, and as we approached the campsite it looked at first as though that might be what had happened. There was nothing but the crunch of our footsteps as we approached the clearing; the campsite seemed deserted. But the tent was still up, the fire pit had not been covered. I looked around cautiously one more time but saw nothing.
“Okay, boy,” I said softly, kneeling to unzip Cisco’s saddlebags. “We tried, right? Let’s do the deed and get out of here.”
Like a wraith, he appeared from the shadows just beyond the campsite. “Just exactly what deed were you thinking about doing?” he demanded flatly.
I was relieved to see he was not holding a shotgun on me this time, but nothing else about his demeanor was reassuring. I swallowed hard, looking up at him. Cisco, sensing my distress, sat down.
“I, um, felt bad about what happened,” I said, “so I brought some stuff. I know it won’t make up for what you lost, but …”
As I spoke I hastily unpacked Cisco’s saddlebags—packaged dried food, jerky, hot dogs—and placed the items on the ground like an offering. His expression went from fierce to puzzled, but when I started unpacking the apples, his eyes lit up. He bent and snatched the apple from my hand before I could place it on the ground, and bit into it with a muffled sound of pleasure.
“Man,” he said in a moment, around a mouthful of fruit, “I haven’t had apples in a coon’s age.”
I smiled and unpacked the rest of the fruit. Finally I took out a pillowcase and offered it to him. I didn’t mind sleeping on a bare pillow; it was the least I could do. “It doesn’t have a drawstring,” I apologized, “but I’ve used pillowcases as bear bags before and maybe it’ll do until you can replace the one Cisco tore.”
He crunched on the apple, looking at the bounty spread before him, looking at Cisco, looking at me. I held my breath until he took the bag from me, swallowed, and said quietly, “That’s right kind of you, ma’am.”
I shrugged and got awkwardly to my feet. Cisco remained sitting, panting at the stranger in a beguiling fashion. “It seemed like the least we could do.”
He stared at the provisions for a time. He took another bite of the apple, finishing it off, chewed and swallowed. He threw the core into the brush. He said, “Good to know there’s still decent folks around, I guess.”
Abruptly, he held out his hand to me. “Name’s Gene Hicks. I’m sorry if I scared you and your little girl before.”
I shook his hand, which was sticky with apple juice. “That’s okay.” I decided not to correct him about the relationship between Melanie and me. “I’m Raine, and this is Cisco.”
He looked down at Cisco, and his long sad face seemed to ache with the faint smile it managed. He said, “Well now, you got him trained real good.”
I said apologetically, “Not good enough, I’m afraid. I’m really sorry for what happened before.”
Never one to miss an opportunity to press his advantage, Cisco got to his feet and wiggled over to the stranger, tail swishing, face grinning. The man bent over to pet him, ruffling his ears, massaging his jawline with his thumbs, the way Cisco liked. I relaxed by inches.
“Well now,” he said, “I reckon you didn’t know any better, did
you, old fella? You look like a good dog to me, yes you do.” I could see him begin to change as he ran his fingers through Cisco’s thick golden coat, as he smiled into his eyes, as he clucked him under the chin. Dogs are magic. They always have been.
I said, noticing his accent, “Where’re you from?”
“Florida, originally.” He straightened up, and some of the defensiveness had left his eyes. “By way of everywhere.”
“Are you hiking the Appalachian?” We weren’t too far from the trail. “I started out the summer after high school but only got as far as Virginia.”
He shook his head. “Nah. Just walking.”
I sensed the shield come up over his face again as he knelt to start packing the food into the pillowcase. I reached into Cisco’s backpack and took out the two bags of candy. “The one thing I craved on the trail was chocolate,” I said, handing them to him. “And it’s good for energy when, you know, you can’t find anything else.”
He took the candy from me without looking up, and he looked at it for a long time. Cisco waved his tail. I just stood there awkwardly.
In a moment he reached out and tugged Cisco’s ear affectionately. He said, “I had a dog. Not like this one. A beagle. My little girl wanted a Snoopy dog.” He let his hand drop and added, without looking at me, “Had to turn him into the pound when we lost our house. Couldn’t afford the pet fee at the apartment, and another mouth to feed … well, it was hard. ’Bout broke my little one’s heart. Mine too.”
I felt something clench in my own chest. It was an all too familiar story in these economic times and it killed me, every single time, to see the desperate lengths to which people had been driven when they were forced to choose between a family member and … their family.
He thrust the candy into the pillowcase and went on, “Everybody was hard hit back home. First the economy went belly-up, then the damn oil spill in the Gulf, then it seemed like one hurricane right after another … but that’s okay, right? Everybody’s got insurance, right? The government going to take care of what wasn’t your fault, right?”
It seemed to me he was almost throwing things in the pillowcase now, and there was no mistaking the bitterness in his voice. “And wouldn’t you know it—the only thing I knew how to do was build houses. I was good at it too. Had a nice house of my own, a couple of spec-builts on the market, two cars, twelve men working for me. Paid my taxes on time, went to church, listened to all the right people—the banker that told me to put my savings in stocks, the insurance man that said I was covered, the government that told me we had the strongest economy in the world. And even when everything went south, I believed them when they said things were going to turn around, I did my best to keep the payroll going, I believed them when they told me the safest place for my money was still right where it was.” He gave a small grunt of contempt. “If I’d’ve kept that money under my pillow all those years, I might’ve saved my house.”
“Anyway.” He sat back on his heels. “We lost everything inside of two years. We were able to hold onto one of the spec houses and live on the rent plus whatever odd jobs I could pick up, until the storm came. The tenants were okay, thank the Lord, but the house was leveled. Sticks. And do you know how much the insurance paid on it? Three hundred dollars.” He shook his head slowly. “All those years, never missed a payment. Three hundred dollars.”
I said uncertainly, “I don’t understand. How can they do that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t understand it either. They said my claim was being pursued. That was three years ago. After a while, you get so beaten down you just can’t fight anymore, and I guess that’s what they’re counting on. Anyway, you might say that was the last straw. My wife just kind of fell apart after that, piece by piece. So did I, I reckon. We tried to put the pieces back together but there were just too many missing. My little girl, she had asthma, you know, and her medicine was so expensive … Here’s my tax money bailing out the fat cats on Wall Street that got us into this mess in the first place, and we’re living on food stamps and odd jobs and can’t afford insurance to pay for my little girl’s asthma. Ah, hell, we didn’t have a chance.
“After a while the wife went to live with her sister in Des Moines and took my baby with her. There was nothing I could do for them. I couldn’t stop her from trying to make a better life for herself, for my little girl. Me, I just started walking. Looking for something, I don’t know what. It’s not such a bad life, on the road. And I guess at least if you’re wearing out shoe leather, you’re doing something.”
The afternoon seemed still and heavy. The birds weren’t chirping, the squirrels weren’t scurrying, even the rain had stopped dripping from the leaves. Cisco, stretching out his paws, lowered himself to the ground and lay down, quietly. Gene Hicks watched him. He kept on watching him even as he spoke again, at last, in a strained and stifled voice. “You know the thing I regret the most?” he said. “The one thing I wish I could change? I wish I could have found a way to keep that damn dog.” He reached out once more and stroked Cisco’s chin. “She sure was crazy about that animal.”
He stood up. “Anyway, I thank you kindly for this.” He lifted the bulging pillowcase in acknowledgement. “And I don’t hold no grudge against your dog.”
I nodded. My throat was too thick, and my eyes too hot, to speak for a moment. I tugged on the leash and Cisco got to his feet. Gene walked over to the tent and pushed back the flap to place the provisions inside. I caught a glimpse of a neatly rolled sleeping bag, a green cotton backpack and a couple of small cardboard boxes near the entrance. As he swung the bag inside, he dislodged one of those boxes, spilling the contents out onto the ground. Cisco was quick to investigate, and before I could stop him had shoved his nose into a box and had come up with something else he shouldn’t have.
“Whoa, there, old boy,” said Gene, reaching for his collar.
At the same time, I cried, “Cisco, drop it!”
Cisco knew when he had pushed his luck and he relinquished his bounty with absolutely no prompting into Gene’s waiting hand.
“Firecrackers,” explained Gene, hastily returning the big fused cylinders to the box. “I was going to try to sell them in town.” He smiled a little. “Maybe I’ll set off a few for the kids tonight. Happy damn Fourth of July, right?”
I tried to return the smile, although I couldn’t stop thinking about my dog who’d just tried to bite through an explosive. “Right,” I said, and turned to go.
“They say when you go through bad times,” he said, “you’re supposed to learn something. What I learned was you can’t trust anybody: not the government, not the banker, not the preacher. Not your wife. Not anybody. You might ought to keep that in mind.”
I turned to look at him, a little chilled. His Abraham Lincoln eyes took on an even more somber hue. “You take care of that little girl, you hear? There’s some bad types around.”
I nodded. I cleared my throat and managed, “You can stay here as long as you want, you know. You’re on public land.”
“I know.” He inclined his toward the lake. “Some good fishing down there too. But I’ll wait till you all move out to try it again.”
I tried to smile. It wasn’t a very valiant effort. “Well,” I said, “it was nice meeting you.”
He did not reply, and Cisco and I walked back down the trail in silence. It wasn’t until I was all the way back at the camp that I realized I had forgotten to return his sock.
Chapter Seventeen
The Hanover County Sheriff’s Department ran two twelve-hour shifts. Buck waited until the seven p.m. watch change to brief both shifts. They didn’t have an official meeting room big enough to accommodate the whole department, so he sat on the edge of one of the desks in the bullpen while everyone else pulled up desk chairs or stood around the edges of the room. They had all heard rumors, and were anxious to have them confirmed.
“Good news, guys,” Buck said. “We finally got some help from the FBI controlling these damn
tourists.”
A few chuckles went around the room, partly polite, mostly nervous. Buck’s gaze went from man to man, catching as many eyes as he could, resting just long enough on Wyn to acknowledge her slight, almost imperceptible nod of encouragement.
He said, “Here’s the deal. Seems like we’ve got a few bad-asses out there who like to dress up as soldiers and plant bombs to make their point. What the hell their point might be is anybody’s guess and I for one don’t care. The FBI thinks Jeb Wilson might be their next target. Our job is to make sure it isn’t. I hope by now you’ve caught on to the fact that we’re damn lucky to be one of the few counties in western North Carolina to have a K-9 team with a specialty in bomb detection so let’s give Deputy Smith and Deputy Nike some respect, am I right?”
A round of cheers, led by Wyn, went around the room, along with some hearty applause that was mostly designed to break the tension. Jolene, who sat in one of the desk chairs with Nike at her feet, remained straight-shouldered and impassive. And anyone who bothered to notice would have seen that there was very little warmth in Buck’s eyes when he looked at her.
He went on, “As far as the FBI is concerned, we’re here to guard the borders, and that suits me fine. Operations normal. But just in case you should happen to stumble on to one of these assholes in the course of normal operations, here’s what you’re looking for.”
He gave them a condensed version of what he had learned from Manahan, and then stood up to pass a handful of flyers to the man on the front row, who took one and passed them on. “We’re also interested in speaking with one Reggie Conner in connection with the death of Carl Brunner. He is not, repeat, not, a suspect in this case, merely a person of very particular interest who seems to have better things to do than make himself available for an interview. Maybe he’s got an important barbecue to attend, maybe he’s out at a ball game, maybe he’s taking advantage of our beautiful Smoky Mountain wilderness on this fine holiday weekend, but he’s starting to piss me off. If you happen to run into him, do not apprehend, but call the number on your poster there. Wyn and Les, I want you in the lead on this.”